Will Jews Pivot To Law, Order And Self-Interest?

Posted on November 4, 2024 by First.One.Through

American Jews have long favored Democrats in presidential elections. The best showings that Republican candidates have had since World War II among Jews was 40% (Eisenhower 1956), 39% (Reagan 1980) and 36% (Eisenhower 1952). Since the 1992 election, Democrats have sailed to clear majorities with between 68% and 80% of the Jewish vote for president. On average, 71% of Jewish voters chose Democratic candidates and 26% chose Republicans since 1968.

Historians consider that Jews aligned themselves with Democrats as it was considered the party of working class immigrants, just as the Jews were coming to the country from Europe and the USSR in the first half of the 20th century. As Jews became more established in America, and the Second Vatican Council of 1965 pushed antisemitism out of the Catholic doctrine, Jews sought candidates which had greater support for their economic and religious (Judeo-Christian) interests between 1972 and 1988 and began to vote for Republicans more frequently. Bill Clinton’s popularity helped bring Jews back overwhelmingly to the Democrats but that faded as Democratic candidates emerged from left-wing states of Illinois, New York and Massachusetts.

*President Ronald Reagan (R-CA) at a Jewish synagogue*

The majority of Jews still live in liberal states including New York, California, New Jersey, but many now reside in conservative Florida and moderate Pennsylvania. Overall, Jews are moving away from the Northeast (from 63% in 1971 to 40% in 2020) to the South (12% in 1971 to 25% in 2020) according to Brandeis. They are going for the sun and lower taxes to live with more conservative neighbors.

This 2024 election may yield a breakthrough of Jews voting for the Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump. No Republican candidate crossed the 30% of Jewish vote threshold since George HW Bush in 1988 collected 35% of the Jewish vote. Trump’s share of the Jewish vote jumped from 24% in 2016 to 30% in 2020.

And it is likely to be higher in 2024.

His opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris comes from California, a radical liberal state, and she had a voting record among the most liberal in the country while she served as senator. Moreso, fellow leading Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer have shown no interest in combatting the alarming level of antisemitism in the country over the past year, and the “woke” fringe of the party has grown and shown itself to have alarming levels of antisemitism.

If Trump pulls over 30% of the Jewish vote – particularly in Pennsylvania (where the Jewish population is about 430,000 or 3.3% of the state), Georgia (140,000; 1.3%) and Michigan (87,000, 0.9%) – it might prove to be the tipping point to help Trump win the electoral college.

American Jewry: *Approximately 5%, 2% and 2% of American Jews live in swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan, respectively (Brandeis)*

*Jews outnumber Muslims in Pennsylvania by almost 3-to-1*

The trend of Jews voting more Republican is likely to continue into the future. Orthodox Jews are currently the only denomination to vote Republican (75% according to Pew) and they have much higher fertility rates than the non-Orthodox streams. Orthodox Jews made up roughly 12% of American Jewry in 2021, which is expected to grow to 29% by 2063 according to a study by Yale. That will likely yield a more conservative voter base for the Republican party.

*Republican candidate Donald Trump visits grave of the Lubavitch rebbe*

The media is focused on the Israeli record of Trump and Biden-Harris in their analysis of how Jews will vote, and it is a factor amid the Iranian proxy-Israel war. But so is the growing segment of Jews who do not want to see economic interests and religion trampled by liberal laws, nor suffer overt (physical attacks and harassment) and covert (DEI mandates) discrimination.

The Most Important Congressional Races For Your Engagement (September 2024)

‘Tis The Season To Vote And Donate Jewish (April 2024)

Biden Counts Votes, As He Pushes For Non-Orthodox Jews And Against Orthodox Jews In Jerusalem (April 2023)

Liberals Blame Orthodox Jews’ Unfounded Fear For Loss of Congress (November 2022)

An Orthodox Rabbi at the Capitol (January 2017)

Powerful Democrats Tell Leaders To Wait Out The Jews

Posted on November 3, 2024 by First.One.Through

It has now been revealed that Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told the administration of Columbia University to “keep heads down” and ride out the controversy of antisemitism on campus. He said that issue of rampant Jew hatred were “political problems are really only among Republicans,” and that Jews and the country would soon move on.

To unpack those statements, the most powerful Democratic politician outside of the Executive branch dismissed the Jew-hatred at Columbia despite one of the rabbis on campus telling Jewish students to go home, “no one should have to endure this level of hatred, let alone at school.” He encouraged the university to do nothing to assist the beleaguered Jews, and that once Democrats took over the House of Representatives, university presidents would no longer be dragged to Washington.

Others also believe that only Republicans cared about the systemic Jew hatred at American universities. Rep. Virginia Foxx, Chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said that Democrats would drop investigating Jew hatred at universities should they win the House in the November 2024 election.

Schumer’s suggestion that leaders wait out setbacks in attacking Jews has precedent.

During Donald Trump’s term in office, former Secretary of State John Kerry under Democratic President Barack Obama passed a message to Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority “that he should stay strong in his spirit and play for time, that he will not break and will not yield to President [Donald] Trump’s demands.” Kerry predicted that Trump would last a single term and then a Democratic Administration would go easy on the PA, and apply hard pressure on Israel.

*Sen. Chuck Schumer and Secretary of State John Kerry discuss the Iranian nuclear deal in 2015*

Democrats know that Jews are a minority-minority, a very small and forgiving people. The old guard Democratic leaders like Schumer and Kerry believe that Jews’ ongoing quest for “tikkun olam / repairing the world” would include self-annihilation, if so required. They believe they know history that Jews (non-Orthodox at least) will look past any insult and cleave to the Democratic Party regardless of actions. Jews will give up land, rights and dignity just as they handed over the Judaism’s holiest site of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, if peace so dictated.

The new generation of Democratic leaders is less convinced. It is waging a war to strip Jews of power, position, wealth and property in a broad redistribution to majority-minority groups like Blacks, as chanted by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, and their sponsor at Justice Democrats.

The cleft in the Democratic Party between the old and new guards is a tactical decision whether to wait for Jews to hang themselves or to give clearance to rob, rape and murder them immediately. Regrettably – no, frighteningly – the party’s view of Jews has been buried under an avalanche of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) that elevates Victims of Preference, even when those groups are directly coming for Jews.

Jews Are Still Living, Hiding and Dying In The Dark Shadow Of Obama’s Second Term (October 2024)

Senator Schumer Is No ‘Shomer’ (October 2024)

Socialist-Jihadi Alliance Attempts To Make Israel A Wedge Issue For Jews (August 2024)

DSA Goes Full Antisemite (July 2024)

Congressional Socialists Won’t Support Israel After Hamas Massacre (October 2023)

The Most Antisemitic Thing (August 2023)

As Democrats Become More Liberal And Anti-Israel, DMFI Sticks Fingers In The Dike (July 2022)

Politicians In Their Own Words: Why We Don’t Support Defending Jews (January 2022)

I See Dead People (July 2019)

This July 4, I am Leaving the Democratic Party that Left Me Long Ago (July 2018)

The Democratic Party is Tacking to the Far Left-Wing Anti-Semitic Fringe (January 2017)

John Kerry: The Declaration and Observations of a Failure (December 2016)

I Did Not Vote For Trump in 2016 or 2020. I am Voting For Him Now.

Posted on November 1, 2024 by First.One.Through

Like many Jewish Americans, I am a registered Democrat. Unlike many, I have no party loyalty and vote for the person I think is best suited for the job.

My friends were shocked when I voted for the libertarian candidate for president in 2016. They rattled off the many offenses of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and that I was wasting my vote. I did not disagree. But I could not vote for Trump or Clinton. Not only had Clinton proven herself to be awful but Trump was a vulgarian wildcard. I believed Trump was such a “deal guy” that he had no sense of the compromises that are needed to run a country of 330 million. He would be bad for America, Israel and the whole world.

I ended up being quite wrong about Trump on Israel. Surrounded by a strong team of advisers, he understood what was required for an ENDURING PEACE in the Middle East, not just the paper to get to a peace agreement. He delivered an amazing array of achievements for America and the Middle East over his term, including the fewest deaths of Arabs and Jews over any four year stretch in modern history.

Yet I remained worried. America was deeply divided and I could not imagine Trump being the solution to bring the country together. Four years on I looked for an alternative.

I cast my lot initially with Mike Bloomberg as a centrist, who had pushed aggressively for Hillary over Trump in 2016 under the premise that she was basically like a prostitute who is deeply unloved but gets the job done. Bloomberg was my version of #NeverTrump meets #NeverBernie Sanders. But he was eliminated early on.

I settled on Biden as the “centrist” to help address the “Mason-Dixon Plaid” that pitted neighbor against neighbor. I wanted to stop the brewing civil war, and too many people hated Trump for him to be the solution. I similarly voted for centrists in Congress, rejecting mainstream media’s endorsement of far left-wing radicals like Jamaal Bowman. I picked a winner at the top of the ticket but saw extremist radicals taking over Congress.

Those radical members of Congress had no need to compromise the way a president must. They incited their base, and brought antisemitism to deplorable levels after the October 7, 2023 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel. Fading Biden had no idea or desire to stem the vicious tide.

Jewish members of Congress like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) turned on Israel and refused to combat the wave of antisemitism. Young Democrats and liberal universities revealed themselves to be deeply hostile to Israel and Jews.

The divide in America now felt more personal. It was no longer about Republicans versus Democrats, but more immediately, radical antisemitic extremists which had metastasized inside the Democratic party and liberal institutions against American Jewry. The general tension in the country is no longer my priority, but the specific targeting of minority-minority Jews which made even leading Jewish politicians hide in fear.

Pundits like Bret Stephens may argue that Trump continues to be a danger, and I was a NeverTrumper just like him. Many friends who are devout liberal Jews continue to believe that the antisemitism is really just a minor issue which will subside when the Iranian proxy war against Israel ends.

I disagree. Things have become so dire for American Jewry that Jews like me are prioritizing Jews over everything else. The alt-left will easily take over a Kamala Harris administration.

Sen. Bernie Sanders explaining that Kamala Harris will side with the alt-left when she is not bound by Biden’s preferences as it relates to Israel

Israel is laying the groundwork for an enduring peace in the Middle East by ridding the region of jihadi extremists who intend on annihilating local Jewry. It is tragic and ugly but essential. Americans – DEMOCRATS – need to similarly take actions which may seem displeasing, including voting for Trump, to end the toxic antisemitism drowning Jews today.